Brussels – The Meloni government should set aside requests for the suspension of the common budgetary rules and focus on making use of the resources that are still available. Signed: Raffaele Fitto, Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms. Faced with the problem of high energy prices and how to tackle it, the European Commission has rejected Italy’s requests, and it is up to the Italian member of the College of Commissioners to deliver the negative response. “I have written today to the ministers responsible for Cohesion Policy to ask them to urgently utilise all available instruments”, he announced from his Facebook page. “The European Union has the resources to respond, and we must mobilise them now,” he writes.
The European Union, notes the Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms, “is making three funds available to Member States and regions to tackle the challenges of the transition and the energy crisis.” Specifically, these are the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund, and the Just Transition Fund (JTF). The call to all, including Italy, is to “accelerate the use of these resources.” To do so, Fitto continues, Member States and regions “can act on several fronts: creating new financial instruments to bring forward payments and adopting all necessary programme adjustments.”
For Fitto, it can and must be done. In the letter sent to the capitals, he points out that “with the reallocation of €34.6 billion towards competitiveness, defence, construction, water and energy, we have demonstrated that it is possible to act with flexibility and speed.” Similarly, “we are now embarking on a similar exercise, focused on energy.” The guidelines for central governments also apply to local authorities: “I will shortly be sending a similar letter to the regions as well,” Fitto announced.
The European Commission has indicated its willingness to “examine all proposals with Member States swiftly and collaboratively, including any revisions to cohesion policy programmes.” This is the political message Brussels is sending to the Meloni government to tackle the problem of high energy prices. However, it remains clear that the Stability Pact will not be suspended. “I am firmly convinced that the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, and the Just Transition Fund can provide vital support in tackling the challenges of the energy crisis.” The government should take note and waste no time: “The resources are there. The tools are there. What is needed now is to act swiftly and decisively, in the interests of our citizens and our businesses.”
The European Committee of the Regions up in arms
Fitto’s letter, containing the recommendations deemed useful by the EU executive, has been literally torn to shreds by the President of the European Committee of the Regions (COR), Kata Tüttő: “The energy crisis is real. The proposed solution is not.” The proposal from the European Commission is therefore deemed unbelievable, and Tüttő drives the point home, criticising the decision to view “cohesion funds as an emergency cash machine, yet again”. A recipe which, he argues, “turns investment policy into a political aspirin: temporary relief, chronic under-investment”. Not to mention that “these funds have already been committed.”
As for the use of the Green Recovery Fund for the green transformation of the economy and production, she doesn’t mince her words: the decision to divert resources from it implies a political choice to scupper any hope of a sustainable transition, and the President of the European Committee of the Regions puts it as clearly as she could: “A just transition: rest in peace.”
